Afghanistan’s Accession into the World Trade Organization

Abstract

Afghanistan is one of the poorest counties in the world and it is classified as both a least developed country and a landlocked developing country by the United Nations. Given these challenges, accession into the World Trade Organization offers Afghanistan the promise of technical assistance for reforms, economic growth through preferential access to developed markets, increased attractiveness to foreign direct investment, and greater reassurances as it conducts trade through and with Pakistan, itself a member of the WTO. Indeed, an application for membership was submitted to the WTO in April 2003 and predictions through 2007 all suggested that Afghanistan believed it could be a full member by 2010. By 2008 Afghanistan had revised these predictions to as soon as technically feasible and the question examined here is why the change? This paper focuses on Afghanistan’s status as an LDC and the challenges of global governance in both facilitating and hindering Afghanistan's accession into the WTO.

Keywords: Afghanistan, Development, Nongovernmental Organizations, World Trade Organization